There are always several people who stop in Kenora during the summer who are riding bicycles across Canada in support of one cause or another, but there are not many people traveling across this massive country by unicycle. That’s what Joseph Boutilier is doing.

Boutilier hopped on his unicycle three months ago in Victoria, B.C. and has traveled over mountains and prairies on just one wheel on his way to Ottawa to raise awareness of climate change and what he sees as the Conservative government’s failure to address the issue in any meaningful way.

“I’m trying to do something a little more noteworthy to raise awareness of the impending climate crisis and the need for the federal government to take some solid action,” said Boutilier. “Canada has fallen short on promised oil sands regulation, pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol, and then introduced weaker emissions targets that we’ve still managed to fail to meet. It all began to crawl under my skin and I was itching to stand up and make a statement. It was at the same time I was getting back into unicycling and I just put two and two together.”

Before he started the trip Boutilier was just able to pedal the unicycle from one side of a gymnasium to another. Now he has the climbed the Rocky Mountains on one wheel, with a helmet and a backpack.

“Going through the Rocky Mountains was challenging, but you know, the thing about unicycles is that there’s no coasting or gears. So while hills are challenging, you’re always sort of going the same pace. I actually found the crosswinds in the prairies more challenging,” he said.

Boutilier’s campaign, Unity for the Climate, has a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a website where supporters can track his progress by a GPS tracker he is wearing.

After leaving Kenora, he says he will be turning south and going through the U.S. before re-entering Canada on his way to Ottawa. Once he gets to the capital, he hopes there will be like-minded individuals there to meet him in order to send a strong message to all of the federal political parties.

“I want to have a convergence of people who are concerned about this issue and make it a No. 1 topic in the next federal election,” he said.